Heidegger - REP

Heidegger, Martin (1889-1976)

Martin Heidegger taught philosophy at Freiburg University (1915-23), Marburg University (1923-8), and again at
Freiburg University (1928-45). Early in his career he came under the influence of Edmund Husserl, but he soon
broke away to fashion his own philosophy. His most famous work, Sein und Zeit (Being and Time)was published in
1927. +HLGHJJHU¶V energetic support for Hitler in 1933-4 earned him a suspension from teaching from 1945 to
1950. In retirement he published numerous works, including the first volumes of his Collected Edition. His thought
has had strong influence on trends in philosophy ranging from existentialism through hermeneutics to
deconstruction, as well as on the fields of literary theory and theology.
Heidegger often makes his case in charged and dramatic language that is difficult to convey in summary form. He
argues that mortality is our defining moment, that we are thrown into limited worlds of sense shaped by our
being-towards-death, and that finite meaning is all the reality we get. He claims that most of us have forgotten the
radical finitude of ourselves and the world we live in. The result is the planetary desert called nihilism, with its
promise that an ideally omniscient and virtually omnipotent humanity can remake the world in its own image and
likeness. None the less, he still holds out the hope of recovering our true human nature, but only at the price of
accepting a nothingness darker than the nihilism that now ravishes the globe. To the barely whispered admission,
µ, hardly know anymore who and where I DP¶, Heidegger answers: µ1RQH of us knows that, as soon as we stop
fooling RXUVHOYHV¶ ([1959a] 1966: 62).
Yet he claims to be no pessimist. He merely wants to find out what being as such means, and Being and Time was
an attempt at this. He called it a fundamental ontology: a systematic investigation of human being (Dasein) for the
purpose of establishing the meaning of being in general. Only half of the book - the part dealing with the finitude
and temporality of human being - was published in 1927. Heidegger elaborated the rest of the project in a less
systematic form during the decades that followed.
Heidegger distinguishes between an entity (anything that is) and the being of an entity. He calls this distinction the
µRQWRORJLFDO GLIIHUHQFH¶. The being of an entity is the meaningful presence of that entity within the range of human
experience. Being has to do with the µLV¶: what an entity is, how it is, and the fact that it is at all. The human entity
is distinguished by its awareness of the being of entities, including the being of itself. Heidegger names the human
entity µ'DVHLQ¶ and argues that 'DVHLQ¶V own being is intrinsically temporal, not in the usual chronological sense
but in a unique existential sense: Dasein ek-sists (stands-out) towards its future. This ek-sistential temporality
refers to the fact that Dasein is always and necessarily becoming itself and ultimately becoming its own death.
When used of Dasein, the word µWHPSRUDOLW\¶ indicates not chronological succession but 'DVHLQ¶V finite and mortal
becoming.
If 'DVHLQ¶V being is thoroughly temporal, then all of human awareness is conditioned by this temporality,
including RQH¶V understanding of being. For Dasein, being is always known temporally and indeed is temporal.
The meaning of being is time. The two main theses of Being and Time - that Dasein is temporal and that the
meaning of being is time - may be interpreted thus: being is disclosed only finitely within 'DVHLQ¶V radically finite
awareness.
Heidegger arrives at these conclusions through a phenomenological analysis of Dasein as being-in-the-world, that
is, as disclosive of being within contexts of significance. He argues that Dasein opens up the arena of significance
by anticipating its own death. But this event of disclosure, he says, remains concealed even as it opens the horizon
of meaning and lets entities be understood in their being. Disclosure is always finite: we understand entities in
their being not fully and immediately but only partially and discursively; we know things not in their eternal
essence but only in the meaning they have in a given situation. Finite disclosure - how it comes about, the
structure it has, and what it makes possible - is the central topic of +HLGHJJHU¶V thought. µ7LPH is the meaning of
EHLQJ¶ was only a provisional way of expressing it.
Dasein tends to overlook the concealed dimension of disclosure and to focus instead on what gets revealed:
entities in their being. This overlooking is what Heidegger calls the forgetfulness of the disclosure of being. By
that he means the forgetting of the ineluctable hiddenness of the process whereby the being of entities is disclosed.
He argues that this forgetfulness characterizes not only everyday µIDOOHQ¶ human existence but also the entire
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, London and New York: Routledge (1998)
history of being, that is, metaphysics from Plato to Nietzsche. He calls for Dasein resolutely to reappropriate its
own radical finitude and the finitude of disclosure, and thus to become authentically itself.
1 Life and works

Martin Heidegger was born on 26 September 1889 in Messkirch, Southwest Germany, to Roman Catholic parents
of very modest means. From 1899 to 1911 he intended to become a priest, but after two years of theological
studies at Freiburg University a recurring heart condition ended those hopes. In 1911 he switched to mathematics
and the natural sciences, but finally took his doctorate in philosophy (1913) with a dissertation entitled Die Lehre
vom Urteil im Psychologismus (The Doctrine of Judgment in Psychologism) (1914). Hoping to get appointed to
)UHLEXUJ¶V chair in Catholic philosophy, he wrote a qualifying dissertation in 1915 on a theme in medieval
philosophy, Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus (Duns 6FRWXV¶ Doctrine of Categories and
Meaning) (1916). However, the job went to someone else, and in the autumn of 1915 Heidegger began his
teaching career at Freiburg as a lecturer.
At this time Heidegger was known as a Thomist, but his 1915 dissertation was strongly influenced by the founder
of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. When Husserl joined the Freiburg faculty in the spring of 1916, Heidegger
came to know him personally, if not well. Their relation would blossom only after the First World War. Heidegger
was drafted in 1918 and served as a weatherman on the Ardennes front in the last three months of the war. When
he returned to Freiburg his philosophical career took a decisive turn. In a matter of weeks he announced his break
with Catholic philosophy (9 January 1919), got himself appointed +XVVHUO¶V assistant (21 January), and began
lecturing on a radical new approach to philosophy (4 February).
Many influences came to bear on +HLGHJJHU¶V early development, including St Paul, Augustine, Meister Eckhart,
Kierkegaard, Dilthey and Nietzsche. But the major influences were Husserl and Aristotle. Heidegger was
+XVVHUO¶V SURWpJp in the 1920s, but he never was a faithful disciple. He preferred Husserl¶V early work, Logische
Untersuchungen (Logical Investigations) (1900-1), to the exclusion of the PDVWHU¶V later developments. Moreover,
the things that Heidegger liked about Logical Investigations were generally consonant with the traditional
scholastic philosophy he had been taught.
First, Husserl¶V early phenomenology considered the human µSV\FKH¶ not as a substantial thing but as an act of
revealing (intentionality), one that revealed not only what is encountered (the entity) but also the way in which it is
encountered (the HQWLW\¶V being). Second, the early Husserl held that the central issue of philosophy was not
modern subjectivity but rather µWKH things WKHPVHOYHV¶, whatever they might happen to be, in their very appearance;
and he provided a descriptive method for letting those things show themselves as they are. Third, phenomenology
argued that the being of entities is known not by some after-the-fact reflection or transcendental construction but
directly and immediately by way of a categorial intuition. In short, for Heidegger, phenomenology was a
descriptive method for understanding the being of entities as it is disclosed in intentional acts (see
Phenomenological movement).
As Heidegger took it, all this contrasted with +XVVHUO¶V later commitment to pure consciousness as the
presuppositionless µWKLQJ LWVHOI¶ that was to be revealed by various methodological µUHGXFWLRQV¶. Heidegger had no
use either for the Neo-Kantian turn to transcendental consciousness that found expression in Husserl¶V Ideen
(Ideas) (1913) or for his further turn to a form of Cartesianism. Against Husserl¶V later theory of an unworldly
transcendental ego presuppositionlessly conferring meaning on its objects, Heidegger proposed the historical and
temporal situatedness of the existential self, µWKURZQ¶ into the world, µIDOOHQ¶ in among entities in their everyday
meanings, and µSURMHFWLQJ¶ ahead towards death.
In the 1920s Heidegger began interpreting the treatises of Aristotle as an implicit phenomenology of everyday life
without the obscuring intervention of subjectivity. He took Aristotle¶V main topic to be µGLVFORVXUH¶ (DOƝWKƝLD) on
three levels: entities as intrinsically self-disclosive; human psyche as co-disclosive of those entities; and especially
the human disclosure of entities in discursive, synthetic activity (logos), whether that be performed in wordless
actions or in articulated sentences. Going beyond Aristotle, Heidegger interpreted this discursive disclosure as
grounded in a kind of movement that he named µWHPSRUDOLW\¶, and he argued that this temporality was the very
essence of human being.
Using this new understanding of human being, Heidegger reinterpreted how anything at all appears to human
beings. He argued that humans, as intrinsically temporal, have only a temporal understanding of whatever entities
they know. But humans understand an entity by knowing it in its being, that is, in terms of how it happens to be
present. Therefore, as far as human being goes, all forms of being are known temporally and indeed are temporal.
The meaning of being is time.
Heidegger developed this thesis gradually, achieving a provisional formulation in Sein und Zeit (Being and Time)
(1927). In public he dedicated the book to Husserl µLQ respect and IULHQGVKLS¶, but in private he was calling
+XVVHUO¶V philosophy a µVKDP¶ (Scheinphilosophie). Meanwhile, in 1923 an unsuspecting Husserl helped
Heidegger move from a OHFWXUHU¶V job at Freiburg to a professorship at Marburg University; and when Husserl
retired in 1928, he arranged for Heidegger to succeed him in the chair of philosophy at Freiburg. Once Heidegger
had settled into the new job, the relationship between mentor and SURWpJp quickly fell apart. If Being and Time
were not enough, the three works Heidegger published in 1929 - µ9RP Wesen des *UXQGHV¶ (µ2Q the Essence of
*URXQG¶), Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics), and Was ist
Metaphysik? (What is Metaphysics?) - confirmed how far apart the two philosophers had grown.
+HLGHJJHU¶V career entered a new phase when the Nazis came to power in Germany. On 30 January 1933 Adolf
Hitler was appointed Chancellor, and within a month the German constitution and all-important civil rights were
suspended. On 23 March Hitler became dictator of Germany, with absolute power to enact laws, and two weeks
later, harsh anti-Semitic measures were promulgated. A conservative nationalist and staunch anti-Communist,
Heidegger supported Hitler¶V policies with great enthusiasm for at least one year, and with quieter conviction for
some ten years thereafter. He was elected rector (president) of Freiburg University on 21 April 1933 and joined the
Nazi Party on May 1, with the motive, he later claimed, of preventing the politicization of the university. In his
inaugural address as rector, Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen 8QLYHUVLWlW (The Self-Assertion of the German
University) (27 May 1933), he called for a reorganization of the university along the lines of some aspects of the
Nazi revolution. As rector he proved a willing spokesman for, and tool of, Nazi policy both foreign and domestic.
Heidegger resigned the rectorate on 23 April 1934 but continued to support Hitler. His remarks in the classroom
indicate that he backed the German war aims, as he knew them, until at least as late as the defeat at Stalingrad in
January 1943. The relation, or lack of it, between +HLGHJJHU¶V philosophy and his political sympathies has long
been the subject of heated debate.
Heidegger published relatively little during the Nazi period. Instead, he spent those years rethinking his philosophy
and setting out the parameters it would have, both in form and focus, for the rest of his life. The revision of his
thought is most apparent in three texts he published much later: (1) the working notes from 1936-8 that he gathered
into %HLWUlJH zur Philosophie. Vom Ereignis (Contributions to Philosophy: On Ereignis), published posthumously
in 1989; (2) the two volumes of his Nietzsche, published in 1961, which contains lecture courses and notes dating
from 1936 to 1946; and (3) µ%ULHI EHU den +XPDQLVPXV¶ (µ/HWWHU on +XPDQLVP¶), written in the autumn of 1946
and published in 1947.
After the war Heidegger was suspended from teaching because of his Nazi activities in the 1930s. In 1950,
however, he was allowed to resume teaching, and thereafter he occasionally lectured at Freiburg University and
elsewhere. Between 1950 and his death he published numerous works, including the first volumes of his massive
Gesamtausgabe (Collected Edition). He died at his home in =lKULQJHQ, Freiburg, on 26 May 1976 and was buried
in his home town of Messkirch. His literary remains are held at the German Literary Archives, at Marbach on the
Neckar.
Heidegger, a Catholic, married Elfride Petri (1893-1992), a Lutheran, on 21 March 1917. They had two sons, both
of whom served in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War and were taken prisoner on the Eastern Front. In
February of 1925 Heidegger began a year-long affair with his then student, Hannah Arendt. In February of 1950
they resumed a strong but often stormy friendship that lasted until Arendt¶V death.
2 Temporality and authenticity

Heidegger was convinced that Western philosophy had misunderstood the nature of being in general and the nature
of human being in particular. His OLIH¶V work was dedicated to getting it right on both scores.
In his view, the two issues are inextricably linked. To be human is to disclose and understand the being of
whatever there is. Correspondingly, the being of an entity is the meaningful presence of that entity within the field
of human experience. A proper or improper understanding of human being entails a proper or improper
understanding of the being of everything else. In this context µKXPDQ EHLQJ¶ means what Heidegger designates by
his technical term µ'DVHLQ¶: not consciousness or subjectivity or rationality, but that distinctive kind of entity
(which we ourselves always are) whose being consists in disclosing the being both of itself and of other entities.
The being of this entity is called µH[LVWHQFH¶ (see §4).
Heidegger argues that the structure of human being is comprised of three co-equal moments: becoming,
alreadiness and presence. (These are usually, and unfortunately, translated as: µFRPLQJ towards LWVHOI¶, µLV as
having EHHQ¶ and µPDNLQJ-SUHVHQW¶.) As a unity, these three moments constitute the essence of human being, which
Heidegger calls µWHPSRUDOLW\¶: opening an arena of meaningful presence by anticipating RQH¶V own death.
Temporality means being present by becoming what one already is.
Becoming. To be human means that one is not a static entity just µWKHUH¶ among other things. Rather, being human
is always a process of becoming oneself, living into possibilities, into RQH¶V future. For Heidegger, such becoming
is not optional but necessary. He expresses this claim in various co-equal formulas: (1) The essence of human
being is µH[LVWHQFH¶ understood as µHN-VLVWHQFH¶, an ineluctable µVWDQGLQJ RXW¶ into concern about RQH¶V own being
and into the need to become oneself; (2) the essence of human being is µIDFWLFDO¶, always already thrust into
concernful openness to itself and thus into the ineluctability of self-becoming; and (3) the essence of being human
is µWR be SRVVLEOH¶ - not just able, but above all needing, to become oneself.
The ultimate possibility into which one lives is the possibility to end all possibilities: RQH¶V death. Human beings
are essentially finite and necessarily mortal, and so RQH¶V becoming is an anticipation of death. Thus, to know
oneself as becoming is to know oneself, at least implicitly, as mortal. Heidegger calls this mortal becoming
µEHLQJ-unto-GHDWK¶.
Alreadiness. Human being consists in becoming; and this becoming means becoming what one already is. Here the
word µDOUHDG\¶ means µHVVHQWLDOO\¶, µQHFHVVDULO\¶ or µLQHYLWDEO\¶. µ$OUHDGLQHVV¶ (Gewesenheit) names RQH¶V
inevitable human essence and specifically RQH¶V mortality. In becoming the finitude and mortality that one already
is, one gets whatever presence one has.
Presence. Mortal becoming is the way human being (a) is meaningfully present to itself and (b) renders other
entities meaningfully present to itself. To put the two together: things are present to human being in so far as
human being is present to itself as mortal becoming. In both cases presence is bound up with absence.
How human being is present to itself. Since mortal becoming means becoming RQH¶V own death, human being
appears as disappearing; it is present to itself as becoming absent. To capture this interplay of presence and
absence, we call the essence of human being µSUHV-abs-HQFH¶, that is, an incomplete presence that shades off into
absence. Pres-abs-ence is a name for what classical philosophy called µPRYHPHQW¶ in the broad sense: the
momentary presence that something has on the basis of its stretch towards the absent.
Pres-abs-ence is an index of finitude. Any entity that appears as disappearing, or that has its current presence by
anticipating a future state, has its being not as full self-presence but as finite pres-abs-ence. The movement towards
death that defines human being is what Heidegger calls µWHPSRUDOLW\¶. The quotation marks indicate that
µWHPSRUDOLW\¶ does not refer to chronological succession but rather means having RQH¶V being as the movement of
finite mortal becoming.
How other things are present to human being. Other entities are meaningfully present to human being in so far as
human being is temporal, that is, always anticipating its own absence. Hence the meaningful presence of things is
also temporal or pres-abs-ent - always partial, incomplete and entailing an absence of its own. Not only is human
being temporal but the presence of things to human being is also temporal in its own right.
All of +HLGHJJHU¶V work argues for an intrinsic link between the temporality or pres-abs-ence that defines human
being and the temporality or pres-abs-ence that characterizes the meaningful presence of things. But the
meaningful presence of things is what Heidegger means by being. Therefore, +HLGHJJHU¶V central thesis is this: as
far as human experience goes, all modes of being are temporal. The meaningful presence of things is always
imperfect, incomplete, pres-abs-ential. The meaning of being is time.
Heidegger argues that this crucial state of affairs - finite human being as an awareness of the finitude of all modes
of being - is overlooked and forgotten both in everyday experience and in philosophy itself. Therefore, his work
discusses how one can recover this forgotten state of affairs on both of those levels.
As regards everyday life, Heidegger describes how one might recall this central but forgotten fact and make it
RQH¶V own again. The act of reappropriating RQH¶V own essence - of achieving a personal and concrete grasp of
oneself as finite - is called µUHVROXWLRQ¶ (in other translations, µUHVROXWHQHVV¶ or µUHVROYH¶). This personal conversion
entails becoming clear about the intrinsic finitude of RQH¶V own being, and then choosing to accept and to be that
finitude.
Awareness of RQH¶V finitude. Human being is always already the process of mortal becoming. However, one is
usually so absorbed in the things one encounters (µIDOOHQQHVV¶) that one forgets the becoming that makes such
encounters possible. It takes a peculiar kind of experience, more of a mood than a detached cognition, to wake one
up to RQH¶V finitude. Heidegger argues that such an awakening comes about in special µEDVLF PRRGV¶ (dread,
boredom, wonder and so on) in which one experiences not things but that which is not-a-thing or µQR-WKLQJ¶. Each
of these basic moods reveals, in its own particular way, the absential dimension of RQH¶V pres-abs-ence.
Heidegger often uses charged metaphors to discuss this experience. For example, he describes dread as a µFDOO of
FRQVFLHQFH¶, where µFRQVFLHQFH¶ means not a moral faculty but the heretofore dormant, and now awakening,
awareness of RQH¶V finite nature. What this call of conscience reveals is that one is µJXLOW\¶, not of some moral fault
but of an ontological defect: the fact of being intrinsically incomplete and on the way to absence. The call of
conscience is a call to understand and accept this µJXLOW¶.
Choosing RQH¶V finitude. One may choose either to heed or to ignore this call of conscience. To heed and accept it
means to acknowledge oneself as a mortal process of pres-abs-ence and to live accordingly. In that case, one
recuperates RQH¶V essence and thus attains µDXWKHQWLFLW\¶ by becoming RQH¶V proper (or µDXWKHQWLF¶) self. To ignore
or refuse the call does not mean to cease being finite and mortal but rather to live according to an improper
(inauthentic or µIDOOHQ¶) self-understanding. Only the proper or authentic understanding of oneself as finite admits
one to the concrete, experiential understanding that all forms of being, all ways that things can be meaningfully
present, are themselves finite.
Summary. The essence of human being is temporality, that is, mortal becoming or pres-abs-ence. To overlook
mortal becoming is to live an inauthentic temporality and to be a fallen self. But to acknowledge and choose RQH¶V
mortal becoming in the act of resolution is to live an authentic temporality and selfhood. It means achieving
presence (both the presence of oneself and that of other entities) by truly becoming what one already is. This
recuperation of RQH¶V own finite being can lead to the understanding that what conditions all modes of being is
finitude: the very meaning of being is time.
3 Being-in-the-world and hermeneutics

In Being and Time Heidegger spells out not only the reasons why, but also the ways in which, things are
meaningfully present to human being.
Being-in-the-world. In contrast to theories of human being as a self-contained theoretical ego, Heidegger
understands human being as always µRXWVLGH¶ any supposed immanence, absorbed in social intercourse, practical
tasks and its own interests. Evidence for this absorption, he argues, is that human being always finds itself caught
up in a mood - that is, µWXQHG LQ¶ to a given set of concerns. The field of such concerns and interests Heidegger
calls the µZRUOG¶ and the engagement with those needs and purposes and the things that might fulfil them he calls
µEHLQJ-in-the-ZRUOG¶ (or equally µFDUH¶).
+HLGHJJHU¶V term µZRUOG¶ does not mean planet earth, or the vast expanse of space and time, or the sum total of
things in existence. Rather, µZRUOG¶ means a dynamic set of relations, ultimately ordered to human possibilities,
which lends meaning or significance to the things that one deals with - as in the phrase µWKH world of the DUWLVW¶ or
µWKH world of the FDUSHQWHU¶. A human being lives in many such worlds, and they often overlap, but what
constitutes their essence - what Heidegger calls the worldhood of all such worlds - is the significance that accrues
to things by their relatedness to human interests and possibilities. Although being-in and world can be
distinguished, they never occur separately. Any set of meaning-giving relations (world) comes about and remains
effective only in so far as human being is engaged with the apposite possibilities (being-in). Being-in holds open
and sustains the world.
In Being and Time Heidegger studies the world that he considers closest to human beings: the world of everyday
activity. The defining moment of such a world is practical purposes ordered to human concerns - for example, the
need to build a house for the sake of shelter. A group of things then gets its significance from the direct or indirect
relation of those things to that goal. For example, these specific tools get their significance from their usefulness
for clearing the ground, those trees get their significance from being suitable for lumber, these plants from their
serviceability as thatch. A dynamic set of such relations (such as µXVHIXO WR¶, µVXLWDEOH DV¶, µQHHGHG IRU¶), all of
which refer things to a human task and ultimately to a human possibility, constitutes a µZRUOG¶ and defines the
current significance that certain things (for example, tools, trees and reeds) might have.
The significance of things changes according to the interplay of human interests, the relations that they generate,
and the availability of material. For example, given the lack of a mallet, the significance of a stone might be its
utility for pounding in a tent peg. The stone gets its current significance as a utensil from the world of the camper:
the desire for shelter, the need of something to hammer with, and the availability of only a stone. (When the
camper finds a mallet, the stone may well lose its former significance.)
Hermeneutical understanding. Heidegger argues that the world of practical experience is the original locus of the
understanding of the being of entities. Understanding entails awareness of certain relations: for example, the
awareness of this as that, or of this as for that. The µDV¶ articulates the significance of the thing. In using an
implement, one has a practical understanding of the LPSOHPHQW¶V relation to a task (X as useful for Y). This in turn
evidences a practical understanding of the being of the implement: one knows the stone as being useful for
pounding in a tent peg. In other words, prior to predicative knowledge, which is expressed in sentences of the type
µ6 is 3¶, human beings already have a pre-theoretical or µSUH-RQWRORJLFDO¶ understanding of the being of things (this
as being for that).
Since the µDV¶ articulates how something is understood, and since the Greek verb hermeneuein means µWR make
something XQGHUVWDQGDEOH¶, Heidegger calls the µDV¶ that renders things intelligible in practical understanding the
µKHUPHQHXWLFDO DV¶. This µKHUPHQHXWLFDO DV¶ is made possible because human being is a µWKURZQ SURMHFW¶,
necessarily thrust into possibilities (thrownness) and thereby holding the world open (project).
Hermeneutical understanding - that is, pre-predicatively understanding the µKHUPHQHXWLFDO DV¶ by being a thrown
project - is the kind of cognition that most befits being-in-the-world. It is the primary way in which humans know
the being of things. By contrast, the more detached and objective µDSRSKDQWLF¶ knowledge that expresses itself in
declarative sentences (µ6 is 3¶) is evidence, for Heidegger, of a derivative and flattened-out understanding of
being.
Summary. As long as one lives, one is engaged in mortal becoming. This becoming entails having purposes and
possibilities. Living into purposes and possibilities is how one has things meaningfully present. The ability to have
things meaningfully present by living into possibilities is called being-in-the-world. Being-in-the-world is
structured as a thrown project: holding open the possibility of significance (project) by ineluctably living into
possibilities (thrownness). This issues in a pre-predicative, hermeneutical understanding of the being of things.
Thus mortal becoming qua being-in-the-world engenders and sustains all possible significance. In another
formulation: temporality determines all the ways that things can have meaningful presence. Time is the meaning of
all forms of being.
4 Dasein and disclosure

Heidegger calls human being µ'DVHLQ¶, the entity whose being consists in disclosing and understanding being,
whether the being of itself or that of other entities. In so far as 'DVHLQ¶V being is a disclosure of its own being, it is
called µH[LVWHQFH¶ or µHN-VLVWHQFH¶: self-referential standing-out-unto-itself. 'DVHLQ¶V very being consists in being
related, with understanding and concern, to itself.
But Dasein is not just related to itself. Existence occurs only as being-in-the-world; that is, the openness of human
being to itself entails the openness of the world for other entities. One of +HLGHJJHU¶V neologisms for µRSHQQHVV¶ is
µWKH WKHUH¶ (das Da), which he uses in two interrelated senses. First, human being is its own µWKHUH¶: as a thrown
project, existence sustains its own openness to itself. And second, in so doing, human being also makes possible
the ZRUOG¶V openness as the µWKHUH¶ for other entities. Human EHLQJ¶V self-disclosure makes possible the disclosure
of other entities.
Heidegger calls human being in both these capacities µEHLQJ-the-WKHUH¶ - Dasein, or sometimes Da-sein when it
refers to the second capacity. In ordinary German Dasein means existence in the usual sense: being there in space
and time as contrasted with not being at all. However, in +HLGHJJHU¶V usage Dasein means being disclosive of
something (whether that be oneself or another entity) in its being. In a word, Dasein is disclosive. And since
human being is radically finite, disclosure is radically finite.
The Greek word for disclosure is DOƝWKƝLD, a term composed of the privative prefix a- (un- or dis-) and the root
OƝWKƝ (hiddenness or closure). Heidegger finds the finitude of dis-closure inscribed in the word a-OƝWKƝLD. To
disclose something is to momentarily rescue it from (a-) some prior unavailability (OƝWKƝ), and to hold it for a while
in presence.
Heidegger discusses three levels of disclosure, ranging from the original to the derivative, each of which involves
Dasein: (1) disclosure-as-such, (2) the disclosedness of entities in their being, and (3) disclosure in propositional
statements. +HLGHJJHU¶V chief interest is in the first. There, disclosure/DOƝWKƝLD is the original occurrence that issues
in meaningful presence (being).
Heidegger argues that levels 1 and 2 are distinct but inseparable and, taken together, make possible level 3. The
word µWUXWK¶ properly applies only at the third level, where it is a property of statements that correctly represent
complex states of affairs. Therefore, to the question µ:KDW is the essence of truth?¶ - that is, µ:KDW makes the truth
of propositions possible at level 3?¶ - Heidegger answers: Proximally, the disclosure of entities in their being (level
2); and ultimately, disclosure-as-such (level 1). His argument unfolds as follows.
Level 1. Disclosure-as-such is the very opening-up of the field of significance. It is the engendering and sustaining
of world on the basis of 'DVHLQ¶V becoming-absent. In so far as it marks the birth of significance and the genesis of
being, disclosure-as-such or world-disclosure is the reason why any specific entity can have meaningful presence
at all.
There are three corollaries. First, the disclosure of world never happens except in 'DVHLQ¶V being; indeed, without
Dasein, there is no openness at all. The engendering and sustaining of the dynamic relations that constitute the
very possibility of significance occurs only as long as Dasein exists as mortal becoming. And conversely,
wherever there is Dasein, there is world. Second, disclosure-as-such never happens apart from the disclosedness of
entities as being this or that. In speaking of disclosure µDV VXFK¶, Heidegger is naming the originating source and
general structure of all possible significance that might accrue to any entity at all. The result of disclosure-as- such
is the fact that referral-to-mortal-Dasein (that is, significance) is the basic state of whatever entities happen to show
up. Third, disclosure-as-such is always prior to and makes possible concrete human action in any specific world.
Such concrete actions run the risk of not being disclosive (that is, being mistaken about the meaning of something).
By contrast, world-disclosure is always disclosive in so far as it is the opening-up of the very possibility of
significance at all.
$OƝWKƝLD/disclosure-as-such - how it comes about, the structure it has, and what it makes possible - is the central
topic or µWKLQJ LWVHOI¶ of +HLGHJJHU¶V thought. He sometimes calls it the µFOHDULQJ¶ of being. He also calls it µEHLQJ
LWVHOI¶ or µEHLQJ-as-VXFK¶ (that is, the very engendering of being). Frequently, and inadequately, he calls it the
µWUXWK¶ of being.
Level 2. What disclosure-as-such makes possible is the pre-predicative availability of entities in their current mode
of being. This pre-predicative availability constitutes level 2, the basic, everyday disclosedness of entities as
meaningfully present. This disclosedness is always finite, and that entails two things.
First, what disclosure-as-such makes possible is not simply the being of an entity but rather the being of that entity
as or as not something: for instance, this stone as not a missile but as a hammer. I know the stone only in terms of
one or another of its possibilities: the entity becomes present not fully and immediately but only partially and
discursively. Thus the HQWLW\¶V being is always finite, always a matter of synthesis-and-differentiation:
being-as-and-as-not. Second, disclosure-as-such lets an entity be present not in its eternal essence but only in its
current meaning in a given situation; moreover, it shows that this specific entity is not the only one that might have
this meaning. For example, in the present situation I understand this stone not as a paperweight or a weapon but as
a hammer. I also understand it as not the best instrument for the job: a mallet would do better.
Even though it is a matter of synthesis-and-differentiation, this pre-predicative hermeneutical understanding of
being requires no thematic articulation, either mental or verbal, and no theoretical knowledge. It usually evidences
itself in the mere doing of something. Nevertheless, in a more developed but still pre-predicative moment, such a
hermeneutical awareness might evolve into a vague sense of the HQWLW\¶V being-this-or-that (µZKDWQHVV¶),
being-in-this-way-or-that (µKRZQHVV¶), and being-available-at-all (µWKDWQHVV¶). Still later, these vague notions might
lose the sense of current meaningfulness and develop, at level 3, into the explicit metaphysical concepts of the
essence, modality and existence of the entity.
The second level of disclosure may be expressed in the following thesis: within any given world, to be an entity is
to be always already disclosed as something or other. This corresponds to the traditional doctrine of metaphysics
concerning a trans-generic (transcendental) characteristic of anything that is: regardless of its kind or species,
every entity is intrinsically disclosed in its being ( omne ens est verum).
Heidegger argues that while it is based on and is even aware of this second level of disclosure, metaphysics has no
explicit understanding of disclosure-as-such or of its source in being-in-the-world. What is more, he claims that the
disclosedness of entities-in-their-being (level 2) tends to overlook and obscure the very disclosure-as- such (level
1) that originally makes it possible. He further argues that there is an intrinsic hiddenness about disclosure-as-such,
which makes overlooking it virtually inevitable (see §6).
Level 3. Being-in-the-world and the resultant pre-predicative disclosedness of entities as being-thus-and-so make it
possible for us to enact the predicative disclosure of entities. At this third level of disclosure we are able to
represent correctly to ourselves, in synthetic judgments and declarative sentences, the way things are in the world.
A correct synthetic representation of a complex state of affairs (a correct judgment) is µWUXH¶, that is, disclosive of
things just as they present themselves. Such a predicative, apophantic sentence (µ6 is 3¶) is able to be true only
because world-disclosure has already presented an entity as significant at all and thus allowed it to be taken as thus
and so. This already disclosed entity is the binding norm against which the assertion must measure itself.
At level 3, however, it is also possible to misrepresent things in thought and language, to fail to disclose them just
as they present themselves in the world. At level 1 Dasein is always and only disclosive. But with predicative
disclosure at level 3 (as analogously with hermeneutical disclosure at level 2) 'DVHLQ¶V representing of matters in
propositional statements may be either disclosive or non-disclosive, either true or false.
One of +HLGHJJHU¶V reasons for elaborating the levels of disclosure is to demonstrate that science, metaphysics and
reason in general, all of which operate at level 3, are grounded in a more original occurrence of disclosure of
which they are structurally unaware. This is what he intends by his claim µ6FLHQFH does not WKLQN¶. He does not
mean scientists are stupid or their work uninformed, nor is he disparaging reason and its accomplishments. He
means that science, by its very nature, is not focused on being-in-the-world, even though being-in-the-world is
ultimately responsible for the meaningful presence of the entities against which science measures its propositions.
5 Hiddenness, Ereignis and the Turn

Hiddenness. Heidegger claims that disclosure-as-such - the very opening up of significance in 'DVHLQ¶V being - is
intrinsically hidden and needs to remain so if entities are to be properly disclosed in their being. This intrinsic
concealment of disclosure-as-such is called the µP\VWHU\¶. Since Heidegger sometimes calls disclosure-as-such
µEHLQJ LWVHOI¶, the phrase becomes µWKH mystery of EHLQJ¶. The ensuing claim, that the mystery of being conceals
itself while revealing entities, has led to much mystification, not least among Heideggerians. Being seems to
become a higher but hidden Entity that performs strange acts that only the initiated can comprehend. This
misconstrual of +HLGHJJHU¶V intentions is not helpful.
How may we understand the intrinsic concealment of disclosure-as-such? One way is to understand the paradigm
of µPRYHPHQW¶ that informs +HLGHJJHU¶V discussion of revealing and concealing. Taken in the broad philosophical
sense, movement is defined not as mere change of place and the like, but as the very being of entities that are
undergoing the process of change. This kind of being consists in anticipating something absent, with the result that
what is absent-but-anticipated determines the HQWLW\¶V present being. Anticipation is the being of such entities, and
anticipation is determined from the absent-but-anticipated goal. For example, the DFRUQ¶V being is its becoming an
oak tree; and correspondingly the future oak tree, as the goal of the DFRUQ¶V trajectory, determines the DFRUQ¶V
present being. Likewise, Margaret is a graduate student in so far as she is in movement towards her Ph.D. The
still-absent degree qua anticipated determines her being-a-student.
The absent is, by nature, hidden. But when it is anticipated or intended, the intrinsically hidden, while still
remaining absent, becomes quasi-present. It functions as the µILQDO FDXVH¶ and raison G¶rWUH that determines the
being of the anticipating entity. That is, even while remaining intrinsically concealed, the absent-as-anticipated
µJLYHV EHLQJ¶ (Es gibt Sein) to the anticipating entity by disclosing the entity as what it presently is. This pattern of
absence-dispensing-presence holds both for the disclosure of Dasein and for the disclosure of the entities Dasein
encounters.
It holds pre-eminently for Dasein. 'DVHLQ¶V being is movement, for Dasein exists by anticipating its own absence.
'DVHLQ¶V death remains intrinsically hidden, but when anticipated, the intrinsically hidden becomes quasi-present
by determining 'DVHLQ¶V being as mortal becoming. The absent, when anticipated, dispenses 'DVHLQ¶V finite
presence.
The same holds for other entities. The anticipated absence determines 'DVHLQ¶V finite being. But 'DVHLQ¶V being is
world-disclosive: it holds open the region of meaningful presence in which other entities are disclosed as
being-this-or-that. Hence, the intrinsically hidden, when anticipated, determines the presence not only of Dasein
but also of the entities Dasein encounters.
Therefore, the very structure of disclosure - that is, the fact that the absent-but- anticipated determines or µJLYHV¶
finite presence - entails that its ultimate source remain intrinsically hidden even while disclosing the being of
entities. This intrinsic hiddenness at the core of disclosure is what Heidegger calls the µP\VWHU\¶. Heidegger argued
that the µP\VWHU\¶ is the ultimate issue in philosophy, and he believed Heraclitus had said as much in his fragment
no. 123: µ'LVFORVXUH-as-such loves to KLGH¶ (Freeman 1971: 33).
Ereignis. The paradigm of movement also explains why Heidegger calls disclosure-as-such µEreignis¶. In ordinary
German Ereignis means µHYHQW¶, but Heidegger uses it as a word for movement. Playing on the adjective eigen
(µRQH¶V RZQ¶), he creates the word Ereignung: movement as the process of being drawn into what is RQH¶V own.
For example, we might imagine that the oak tree as final cause µSXOOV¶ the acorn into what it properly is, by
drawing the acorn towards what it is meant to be. This being-pulled is the DFRUQ¶V movement, its very being.
Likewise, Dasein is µFODLPHG¶ by death as its final cause and µSXOOHG IRUWK¶ by it into mortal becoming. This
being-drawn into RQH¶V own absence, in such a way that world is engendered and sustained, is what Heidegger
calls µDSSURSULDWLRQ¶. It is what he means by Ereignis.
The word µEreignis¶, along with the image of Dasein being appropriated by the absent, emerges in +HLGHJJHU¶V
thought only in the 1930s. However, this later language echoes what Heidegger had earlier called 'DVHLQ¶V
thrownness, namely, the fact that Dasein is thrust into possibilities, anticipates its self-absence, and so is
µDOUHDG\¶ involved in world-disclosure. Both the earlier language of thrown anticipation of absence, and the later
language of appropriation by absence, have the same phenomenon in view: 'DVHLQ¶V alreadiness, its constitutive
mortality that makes for world-disclosure.
The paradigm of movement also helps to clarify +HLGHJJHU¶V claim about the concealing-and-revealing, or
withdrawing-and-arriving, of being itself (that is, of disclosure-as-such). In a quite typical formulation Heidegger
writes: µ%HLQJ itself withdraws itself, but as this withdrawal, being is the µSXOO¶ that claims the essence of human
being as the place of EHLQJ¶V own DUULYDO¶ (1961: vol. 2, 368). This sentence, which describes the structure of
Ereignis, may be interpreted as follows:
The µZLWKGUDZDO¶ of disclosure-as-such
(that is, the intrinsic hiddenness of world-disclosive absence)
maintains a relation to Dasein
(which we may call either µDSSURSULDWLRQ¶ or µWKURZQ DQWLFLSDWLRQ¶)
that claims Dasein
(by appropriating it into mortal becoming)
so that, in 'DVHLQ¶V being,

(in so far as 'DVHLQ¶V being is the openness that is world)
being itself might arrive
(in the form of the relations of significance whereby entities have being-as this-or-that).
The Turn. One can notice a certain shift within +HLGHJJHU¶V work beginning around 1930, both in his style and in
the topics he addresses. As regards style, some have claimed that his language becomes more abstruse and poetic,
and his thinking less philosophical than mystical. As regards substance, he seems to introduce new topics like
µDSSURSULDWLRQ¶ and the µKLVWRU\ of EHLQJ¶.
The problem is to discern whether these and other shifts count as what Heidegger calls the Turn (die Kehre). Some
argue that beginning in the 1930s Heidegger radically changed his approach and perhaps even his central topic.
The early Heidegger, so the argument goes, had understood being itself (that is, disclosure-as-such) from the
standpoint of Dasein, whereas the later Heidegger understands Dasein from the standpoint of being itself. But to
the contrary it is clear that even the early Heidegger understood Dasein only from the standpoint of being itself.
Heidegger clarifies matters by distinguishing between (1) the Turn and (2) the µFKDQJH in WKLQNLQJ¶ that the Turn
demands, both of which are to be kept distinct from (3) the various shifts in form and focus that his philosophy
underwent in the 1930s. The point is that, properly speaking, the Turn is not a shift in +HLGHJJHU¶V thinking nor a
change in his central topic. The Turn is only a further specification of Ereignis. There are three issues here.
First, the µ7XUQ¶ is a name for how Ereignis operates. Ereignis is the appropriation of Dasein for the sake of
world-disclosure. For Heidegger, this fact stands over against all theories of the self as an autonomous subject that
presuppositionlessly (that is, without a prior world-disclosure) posits its objects in meaning. In opposition to that,
Ereignis means that Dasein must already be appropriated into world-disclosive absence before anything can be
significant at all.
Ereignis also means that 'DVHLQ¶V appropriation by, or thrownness into, world-disclosive absence is the primary
and defining moment in 'DVHLQ¶V projection of that disclosure. This reciprocity (Gegenschwung) between
appropriation/thrownness on the one hand and projection on the other - with the priority going to
appropriation/thrownness - constitutes the very structure of Ereignis and is what Heidegger calls the Turn. The
upshot of this reciprocity is that Dasein must be already pulled into world-disclosive absence (thrown or
appropriated into it) if it is to project (that is, hold open) disclosure at all. In a word, the Turn is Ereignis.
Second, the µFKDQJH in WKLQNLQJ¶ refers to the personal conversion that the Turn demands. To become aware of the
Turn and to accept it as determining RQH¶V own being is what Heidegger had earlier called µUHVROXWLRQ¶ and what he
now describes as µD transformation in human EHLQJ¶. This transformation into an authentic self consists in letting
RQH¶V own being be defined by the Turn.
Third, the shifts in +HLGHJJHU¶V work in the 1930s - and especially the development and deepening of his insights
into thrownness and appropriation - are just that: shifts and developments within a single, continuing project.
Important as they are, they are neither the Turn itself nor the change in personal self-understanding that the Turn
requires.
6 Forgetfulness, history and metaphysics

Heidegger sees a strong connection between the forgetting of disclosure-as-such, the history of the dispensations
of being, and metaphysics.
Forgetting disclosure-as-such. Because disclosure-as-such is intrinsically hidden (this is what is meant by the
mystery), it is usually overlooked. When the mystery is overlooked, human being is µIDOOHQ¶, that is, aware of
entities as being-thus-and-so, but oblivious of what it is that µJLYHV¶ being to entities. Fallenness is forgetfulness of
the mystery. Another term for fallenness is µHUUDQF\¶, which conveys the image of Dasein µZDQGHULQJ¶ among
entities-in-their-being without knowing what makes their presence possible. Since disclosure-as-such is sometimes
called µEHLQJ LWVHOI¶, fallenness is also called µWKH forgetfulness of EHLQJ¶.
However, disclosure-as-such need not be forgotten. It is possible, in resolution, to assume RQH¶V mortality and
become concretely aware of disclosure-as-such in its basic state of hiddenness. Such awareness does not undo the
intrinsic hiddenness of disclosure-as-such or draw it into full presence. Rather, one accepts the concealment of
being itself (this is called µOHWWLQJ being EH¶) by resolutely accepting RQH¶V appropriation by absence.
The history of the dispensations of being. +HLGHJJHU¶V discussions of the µKLVWRU\ of EHLQJ¶ sometimes verge on the
anthropomorphic, and he often uses etymologies that are difficult to carry over into English. Nevertheless, his
purpose in all this is clear: to spell out the world-historical dimensions of fallenness.
As we have seen, disclosure-as-such µJLYHV¶ the being of entities while the µJLYLQJ¶ itself remains hidden; and this
happens only in so far as Dasein is appropriated by absence. When one forgets the absence that appropriates
Dasein, and thus forgets the hidden giving that brings forth the being of entities, fallenness and errancy ensue.
Fallen Dasein then focuses on the given (entities-in-their-being) and overlooks the hidden giving
(disclosure-as-such). None the less, the hidden giving still goes on giving, but now in a doubly hidden way: it is
both intrinsically hidden and forgotten. When the hiddenness is forgotten, a disclosure is called a
µGLVSHQVDWLRQ¶ (Geschick) of being. The word connotes a portioning-out that holds something back. A certain form
of the being of entities is dispensed while the disclosing itself remains both hidden and forgotten.
In German, µGLVSHQVDWLRQ¶ (Geschick) and µKLVWRU\¶ (Geschichte) have their common root in the verb schicken, µWR
VHQG¶. Playing on those etymologies, Heidegger elaborates a µKLVWRU\¶ of being, based on the µVHQGLQJV¶ or
µGLVSHQVDWLRQV¶ of being. (The usual translations of Geschick as µIDWH¶ or µGHVWLQ\¶ are not helpful here.) In
+HLGHJJHU¶V view each dispensation of being defines a distinct epoch in the history of thought from ancient Greece
down to today. He calls the aggregate of such dispensations and epochs the µKLVWRU\ of EHLQJ¶. Because the whole
of these dispensations and epochs is correlative to fallenness, Heidegger seeks to overcome the history of being
and return to an awareness of the hidden giving.
Heidegger believes the parameters of each epoch in the history of being can be glimpsed in the name that a major
philosopher of the period gave to the being of entities in that age. A non-exhaustive list of such epoch-defining
notions of being includes: idea in Plato, energeia in Aristotle, act in Aquinas, representedness in Descartes,
objectivity in Kant, Absolute Spirit in Hegel, and will to power in Nietzsche. What characterizes each such epoch
is (1) an understanding of being as some form of the presence of entities and (2) an oblivion of the absence that
bestows such presence. None the less, even when forgotten the absence is never abolished, and thus traces of it
remain in the various dispensations. Therefore, in studying the texts of classical philosophy Heidegger searches for
and retrieves the unexpressed absence (the µXQVDLG¶) that hides behind what the text actually expresses (the µVDLG¶).
Metaphysics. The various ways that presence or being has been dispensed, while absence has been overlooked, are
called in their entirety µPHWDSK\VLFV¶. Heidegger argues that metaphysics as a philosophical position began with
Plato and entered its final phase with Nietzsche.
The Greek philosophers who preceded Socrates and Plato were, in +HLGHJJHU¶V view, pre-metaphysical in so far as
they had at least a penumbral awareness of disclosure-as-such and at least named it (Heraclitus, for example, called
it logos, DOƝWKƝLD, and physis). However, none of these thinkers thematically addressed disclosure-as-such or
understood the correlative notions of ek-sistence and Dasein. Heidegger calls the penumbral awareness of
disclosure-as-such among archaic Greek thinkers the µILUVW EHJLQQLQJ¶. And he hoped that a µQHZ EHJLQQLQJ¶ would
follow the end of metaphysics. If the first beginning was not yet metaphysical, the new beginning will be no longer
metaphysical. Heidegger considered his own work a preparation for that new beginning.
But metaphysics persists. The history of the dispensations of being has reached its fullness in the present epoch of
technology. As Heidegger uses the word, µWHFKQRORJ\¶ refers not to hardware or software or the methods and
materials of applied science. Rather, it names a dispensation in the history of metaphysics, in fact the final one. It
names the way in which entities-in-their-being are disclosed today.
Heidegger maintains that in the epoch of technology entities are taken as a stockpile of matter that is in principle
completely knowable by human reason and wholly available for human use. With this notion metaphysics arrives
at its most extreme oblivion of disclosure-as-such. In our time, Heidegger says, the presence of entities has become
everything, while the absence that brings about that presence has become nothing. He calls this nil-status of
absence µQLKLOLVP¶.
Overcoming metaphysics. None the less, Heidegger sees a glimmer of light in the dark epoch of nihilism. In this
final dispensation of metaphysics, the hidden giving does not cease to function, even when it is completely
forgotten. It continues dispensing presence - paradoxically even the nihilistic presence which obscures the absence
that gives it. Because the hidden giving goes on giving even when it is forgotten, we can still experience it today
(in a mood not unlike dread) and retrieve it. This recovery of world-disclosive absence requires resolution or, as
Heidegger now calls it, µWKH entrance into Ereignis¶. To enter Ereignis today is to experience a different kind of
nihil (µQRWKLQJ¶) from the one that defines nihilism. The absence that bestows presence is itself a kind of
µQRWKLQJ¶ (not-a-thing). This absence is no entity, nor can it be reduced to the being of any specific entity or be
present the way an entity is. That is why it is so easily overlooked. Its µQRWKLQJQHVV¶ is its intrinsic hiddenness.
To enter Ereignis is to become aware of and to accept the disclosive nihil that rescues one from nihilism.
Thereupon, says Heidegger, metaphysics as the history of the dispensations of being ceases and a new beginning
takes place - at least for those individuals who achieve authenticity by way of resolution. But metaphysics will
continue for those who remain inauthentic, because dispensation is correlative to fallenness.
Summary. The forgetting of disclosure-as-such is metaphysics. Metaphysics knows entities-in-their-being but
ignores the very giving of that being. The aggregate of the epochs of metaphysics is the history of the
dispensations of being. The history of these dispensations culminates in the epoch of technology and nihilism. But
world-disclosive absence can still be retrieved; and when it is retrieved, it ushers in (at least for authentic
individuals) a new beginning of ek-sistence and Dasein.
7 The work of art

One of +HLGHJJHU¶V most challenging essays is µ7KH Origin of the Work of $UW¶, originally drafted in 1935 and
published in an expanded version only in 1950. There he distinguishes between the work of art as a specific entity
(for example, a poem or a painting) and art itself, the latter being understood not as a collective name for, but
rather as the essence and origin of, all works of art. Heidegger asks what art itself is, and he answers that art is a
unique kind of disclosure.
Dasein is disclosive of the being of an entity in many ways, some of them ordinary and some of them
extraordinary. An outcome common to both kinds of disclosure is that the disclosed entity is seen as what it is: it
appears in its form. Examples of ordinary, everyday ways of disclosing the being of entities include showing
oneself to be adept at the flute, or moulding clay into a vase, or concluding that the accused is innocent. Each of
these ordinary cases of praxis, production and theory does indeed disclose some entity as being this or that, but the
focus is on showing what the entity is rather than on showing how the HQWLW\¶V being is disclosed. On the other
hand, extraordinary acts of disclosure bring to attention not only the disclosed entity but above all the event of
disclosure of that HQWLW\¶V being. Extraordinary acts of disclosure let us see the very fact that, and the way in
which, an entity has become meaningfully present in its being. In these cases not only does an entity appear in its
form (as happens in any instance of disclosure) but more importantly the very disclosure of the being of the entity
µLV HVWDEOLVKHG¶ (sich einrichten) in the entity and is seen there as such.
Heidegger lists five examples of extraordinary disclosure: the constitution of a nation-state; the nearness of god;
the giving of RQH¶V life for another; the WKLQNHU¶V questioning as revealing that being can be questioned; and the
µLQVWDOODWLRQ¶ (Sich-ins-Werk-Setzen) of disclosure in a work of art. Each of these cases discloses, in its own
particular way, not just an entity but the very disclosure of that HQWLW\¶V being. Heidegger seeks to understand the
particular way in which art itself discloses disclosure by µLQVWDOOLQJ¶ disclosure in the work of art.
In his essay Heidegger refers mainly to two works of art: van Gogh¶V canvas µ2OG 6KRHV¶, painted in Paris in
1886-7 and now hung in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the 5th century BC Doric Temple of Hera II - the
so-called Temple of Poseidon - at Paestum (Lucania), Italy. Let us consider the temple at Paestum as we attempt to
answer two questions: what gets disclosed in a work of art and how does it get disclosed?
(1) What gets disclosed in a work of art? Heidegger gives three answers. First, a work of art lets us see disclosure
in the form of µZRUOG¶ and µHDUWK¶. A work of art discloses not just an entity or an ensemble of entities but the
whole realm of significance whereby an ensemble of entities gets its finite meaning. The temple at Paestum not
only houses (and thus discloses) the goddess Hera, but more importantly lets us see the social and historical world
- rooted as it was in the natural setting of Lucania - that +HUD¶V presence guaranteed for the Greek colonists. A
work of art, Heidegger argues, reveals the very event of disclosure, which event he calls the happening of world
and earth, where µHDUWK¶ refers not only to nature and natural entities but more broadly to all entities within a
specific world.
Second, a work of art lets us see the radical tension that discloses a specific world of significance. Heidegger
understands being-in-the-world as a µVWUXJJOH¶ (Streit or polemos) between a given world and its earth, between the
self-expanding urge of a set of human possibilities and the rootedness of such possibilities in a specific natural
environment. Here, µVWUXJJOH¶ is another name for the event of disclosure whereby a particular world is opened up
and maintained. What a specific work of art discloses is one particular struggle that discloses one particular world
- for instance, the world of the Greek colonists at Paestum.
Third, a work of art shows us disclosure-as-such. The movement of opening up a particular world is only one
instance of the general movement of DOƝWKƝLD: the µZUHVWLQJ¶ of being-at-all from the absolute absence into which
Dasein is appropriated. Thus a work of art not only shows us a particular world-disclosive struggle (the way the
temple of Hera shows us the earth-world tension at Paestum) but also lets us see the µRULJLQDO VWUXJJOH¶ (Urstreit)
of disclosure-as-such, whereby significance is wrested from the double closure of intrinsic hiddenness and
fallenness.
In short, what a work of art reveals is disclosure in three forms: as world and earth; as the struggle that opens up a
specific world and lets its entities be meaningful; and as the original struggle that structures all such particular
disclosures.
(2) How does a work of art disclose disclosure? The specific way that art discloses disclosure is by µLQVWDOOLQJ¶ it
in a given work of art. Here, µWR LQVWDOO¶ means to bring to stability; and µWR install GLVFORVXUH¶ means to incorporate
it into the physical form of a work of art. There are three corollaries:
What the installing is not. Heidegger does not claim that the work of art µVHWV XS¶ the world and µVHWV IRUWK¶ the
earth for the first time. That is, installing the disclosure of earth and world in the work of art is not the only or even
the first way that earth and world get disclosed. The sanctuary of Hera was not the first to open up the world of
Paestum and disclose the fields and flocks for what they are. Tradesmen and farmers had been doing that - that is,
the disclosive struggle of world and earth had been bestowing form and meaning - for at least a century before the
temple was built.
What the installing is and does. Art discloses, in a new and distinctive way, a disclosure of earth and world that is
already operative. Heidegger argues that the temple as disclosive (a) captures and sustains the openness of that
world and its rootedness in nature, and (b) shows how, within that world, nature comes forth into the forms of
entities while remaining rooted in itself. Heidegger calls these two functions, which happen only in art, the
µVHWWLQJ XS¶ of world and the µVHWWLQJ IRUWK¶ of earth.
The work of art lets us see - directly, experientially and in all its glory - the already operative interplay of human
KLVWRU\¶V rootedness in nature and QDWXUH¶V emergence into human history. In +HLGHJJHU¶V words, art
µVWDELOL]HV¶ (zum Stehen bringen) the disclosive struggle of world and earth by µLQVWDOOLQJ¶ it in a particular work of
art, such that in and through that medium, disclosure µVKLQHV IRUWK¶ brilliantly in beauty.
The two ways art discloses disclosure, and their unity. Art itself is a specific and distinctive way in which Dasein
is disclosive: it discloses disclosure by installing disclosure in the physical form of a work of art. This installation
has two moments: the creation and the preservation of the work of art.
Creation is an DUWLVW¶V Dasein-activity of incorporating disclosure - the world-openness that is already operative -
into a material medium (stone, colour, language and so on). This incorporation of disclosure is carried out in such
a way that the material medium is not subordinated to anything other than disclosure (for example, it is not
subordinated to µXVHIXOQHVV¶). Rather, the medium becomes, for whoever experiences it, the immediate disclosure
of disclosure.
Preservation is the corresponding Dasein-activity of maintaining the power of disclosure in the work of art by
resolutely letting disclosure continue to be seen there. Creation and preservation are the two ways that Dasein
µSURMHFWV¶ (holds open and sustains) the disclosure that is installed in the work of art. The unity of creation and
preservation is art itself, which Heidegger calls Dichtung - not µSRHWU\¶ but poiesis, the creating-and-preserving
installation of disclosure in a disclosive medium.
Disclosure is the central topic of all +HLGHJJHU¶V philosophy, and this fact shines brilliantly through his reflection
on the origin of the work of art. Art, both as creation and as preservation, is a specific and distinctive
Dasein-activity: the disclosure of disclosure in a medium that is disclosive. In the work of art, as in +HLGHJJHU¶V
own work, LW¶V DOƝWKƝLD all the way down.
See also: Hermeneutics §4; Kuki 6Kǌ]ǀ; Phenomenological movement §§4-5; Watsuji 7HWVXUǀ
THOMAS SHEEHAN
List of works
Heidegger, M. (1975-) Gesamtausgabe (Collected Edition), Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann.(The standard edition
of +HLGHJJHU¶V works. Over eighty volumes are projected, of which more than forty appeared by 1997. English
translations of individual volumes are given at the end of the list of works below.)
Heidegger, M. (1914) Die Lehre vom Urteil im Psychologismus. Ein kritisch-positiver Beitrag zur Logik (The
Doctrine of Judgment in Psychologism: A Critical-positive Contribution to Logic), Leipzig: Barth.
(+HLGHJJHU¶V doctoral dissertation.)
Heidegger, M. (1916) Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus (Duns 6FRWXV¶ Doctrine of
Categories and Meaning), 7ELQJHQ: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). (+HLGHJJHU¶V Habilitationsschrift, the
qualifying dissertation required for teaching at a university.)
Heidegger, M. (1927) µ6HLQ und =HLW¶, Jahrbuch IU Philosophie und SKlQRPHQRORJLVFKH Forschung 8: 1-438;
Sein und Zeit, Halle an der Salle: Max Niemeyer; trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Being and Time, New
York: Harper & Row, 1962; trans. J. Stambaugh, Being and Time, Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 1996.(+HLGHJJHU¶V most famous work, which treats the structure of Dasein as being-in-the-world and as
temporal. The unpublished second half of the work was to have shown that the meaning of being is time.)
Heidegger, M. (1929a) µ9RP Wesen des *UXQGHV¶, Jahrbuch IU Philosophie und SKlQRPHQRORJLVFKH Forschung,
supplement 71-100; trans. T. Malick, The Essence of Reasons, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,
1969; trans. W. McNeill, µ2Q the Essence of *URXQG¶, in Pathmarks, New York: Cambridge University Press,
1997. (An essay on truth, transcendence and ground, written in honour of Edmund Husserl¶V 80th birthday,
April 1929.)
Heidegger, M. (1929b) Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, Bonn: Friedrich Cohen; trans. R. Taft, Kant and
the Problem of Metaphysics, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990.(Originally conceived as part of
the second half of Sein und Zeit, this work argues that the hidden meaning of the transcendental imagination in
the µ$¶ version of .DQW¶V Critique of Pure Reason is the temporality of Dasein as presented in Sein und Zeit.)
Heidegger, M. (1929c) Was ist Metaphysik?, Bonn: Friedrich Cohen; trans. D.F. Krell, µ:KDW is Metaphysics?¶, in
D.F. Krell, Basic Writings, revised edn, San Francisco: Harper, 1993; and in Pathmarks, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1997.(+HLGHJJHU¶V inaugural address as Husserl¶V successor at Freiburg University. It
discusses boredom as a µEDVLF PRRG¶ and broaches the topic of being as µWKH QRWKLQJ¶ or µQRW-a-WKLQJ¶.)
Heidegger, M. (1933) Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen 8QLYHUVLWlW, Breslau: Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn; trans. K.
Harries, µ7KH Self-Assertion of the German 8QLYHUVLW\¶, Review of Metaphysics (1985) 38: 470-80.
(+HLGHJJHU¶V controversial inaugural address as rector of Freiburg University, 27 May 1933.)
Heidegger, M. (1942) µ3ODWRQV Lehre von der :DKUKHLW¶, Geistige hEHUOLHIHUXQJ 2: 96-124; trans. J. Barlow,
µ3ODWR¶V Doctrine of 7UXWK¶, in W. Barrett (ed.) Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, New York: Random
House, 1962, vol. 2; trans. T. Sheehan, µ3ODWR¶V Doctrine of 7UXWK¶, in Pathmarks, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1997.(This close reading of Allegory of the Cave in Plato¶V Republic argues that Plato
inaugurates the metaphysical notion of truth as correspondence.)
Heidegger, M. (1943a) Vom Wesen der Wahrheit, Frankfurt: Vittorio Klosterman; trans. J. Sallis, µ2Q the Essence
of 7UXWK¶, in D.F. Krell (ed.) Basic Writings, revised edn, San Francisco: Harper, 1993; and µ2Q the Essence of
7UXWK¶, in Pathmarks, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.(Originally drafted in 1930, the essay
discusses the levels of disclosure: propositional truth, the manifestness of entities, and disclosure-as-such or
aletheia.)
Heidegger, M. (1947) µ%ULHI EHU den +XPDQLVPXV¶, in Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit. Mit einem Brief EHU
den Humanismus, Bern: Francke; trans. F.A. Capuzzi, µ/HWWHU on +XPDQLVP¶, in D.F. Krell (ed.) Basic
Writings, revised edn, San Francisco: Harper, 1993; and in Pathmarks, New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1997.(Written as an open letter to Jean Beaufret, +HLGHJJHU¶V first publication after the Second World
War reveals the shifts his thinking had undergone in the 1930s.)
Heidegger, M. (1950) Holzwege (Forest Paths), Frankfurt: Vittorio Klosterman.(A collection of essays dating
from 1936 to 1946.)The following six references are the translations into English of all the essays contained in
Holzwege. Dates within parentheses indicate the original redaction of the German text.
Heidegger, M. (1935) µ7KH Origin of the Work of $UW¶, trans. A. Hofstadter, in D.F. Krell (ed.) Basic Writings,
revised edn, San Francisco: Harper, 1993.(Originally delivered as a lecture in 1935, the essay argues that art,
taken as the essence of any work of art, consists in disclosing disclosure by µLQVWDOOLQJ¶ it in the physical
medium of the work.)
Heidegger, M. (1938) µ7KH Age of the World 3LFWXUH¶, in W. Lovitt (trans. and ed.) The Question Concerning
Technology and Other Essays, New York: Harper & Row, 1977.(Originally delivered as a lecture in 1938, the
essay discusses, among other things, the birth of modernity with Descartes¶ view of thinking as the
representation of entities by the subject as unshakable foundation.)
Heidegger, M. (1942-3) +HJHO¶V Concept of Experience, trans. J.G. Gray, New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
(Drawn from seminars Heidegger gave in 1942-3, the essay presents Hegel as the culmination of
subject-centred metaphysics.)
Heidegger, M. (1943b) µ7KH Word of Nietzsche "God is Dead"¶, in W. Lovitt (trans. and ed.) The Question
Concerning Technology and Other Essays, New York: Harper & Row, 1977.(Originally presented in 1943 (but
drawing on lecture courses dating from 1936 to 1940), the essay interprets no. 125 of Nietzsche, The Gay
Science, and other texts, in order to present Nietzsche¶V thought as the culmination of Western metaphysics.)
Heidegger, M. (1946a) µ:KDW Are Poets For?¶, trans. A. Hofstadter, in D.F. Krell (ed.) Poetry, Language,
Thought, New York: Harper & Row, 1971.(Given as a lecture to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of
Rainer Maria Rilke¶V death, the essay argues that the poet was both subject to Nietzschean nihilism and
attempted to overcome it by recovering the authentic sense of language.)
Heidegger, M. (1946b) µ7KH Anaximander )UDJPHQW¶, trans. D.F. Krell, in D.F. Krell and F.A. Capuzzi (eds)
Early Greek Thinking, New York: Harper & Row, 1975.(Dating from 1946 but drawing on work done as early
as 1932, this essay provides a close reading of Anaximander¶V Fragment 1 and offers some remarks on the
history of being.)
Heidegger, M. (1951a) (UOlXWHUXQJHQ zu +|OGHUOLQV Dichtung (Elucidations of +|OGHUOLQ¶V Poetry), Frankfurt:
Vittorio Klostermann; 4th expanded edn, 1971.(Six essays on +|OGHUOLQ¶V poetry.)Two of these essays on
+|OGHUOLQ¶V poetry have been translated into English and are given below. Dates within parentheses indicate the
original redaction of the German text.
Heidegger, M. (1936) µ+|OGHUOLQ and the Essence of 3RHWU\¶, in W. Brock (ed.) Existence and Being, Chicago:
Henry Regnery, 1949.(Delivered as a lecture in Rome in 1936 and first published the following year, the essay
presents +|OGHUOLQ as the µSRHW of SRHWU\¶ and reflects on SRLƝVLV as the µHVWDEOLVKPHQW¶ of disclosure.)
Heidegger, M. (1943c) µ5HPHPEUDQFH of the 3RHW¶, in W. Brock (ed.) Existence and Being, Chicago, IL: Henry
Regnery, 1949.(Given as a lecture in June 1943, at the centenary celebration of +|OGHUOLQ¶V death, the essay
interprets the SRHW¶V elegy µ+HLPNXQIW/An den 9HUZDQGWHQ¶ (µ+RPHFRPLQJ/To the .LQVPHQ¶) and reflects on
the SRHW¶V relation to disclosure-as-such, here called µWKH KRO\¶.)
Heidegger, M. (1953a) (LQIKUXQJ in die Metaphysik, 7ELQJHQ: Max Niemeyer; trans. R. Manheim, An
Introduction to Metaphysics, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959.(A lecture course from 1935,
treating among other things +HLGHJJHU¶V interpretation of the meaning of being in Parmenides and Heraclitus.)
Heidegger, M. (1954) 9RUWUlJH und $XIVlW]H (Lectures and Essays), Pfullingen: *QWHU Neske. (A collection of
eleven essays, ranging in date from 1936 to 1954.)Ten of the eleven essays in 9RUWUlJH und $XIVlW]H have been
translated into English and are given below. Dates within parentheses indicate the original redaction of the
German text.
Heidegger, M. (1936-46) µ2YHUFRPLQJ 0HWDSK\VLFV¶, in J. Stambaugh (trans. and ed.) The End of Philosophy,
New York: Harper & Row, 1973.(Thirty-eight brief notes, dating from 1936 to 1946, on the overcoming of
metaphysics.)
Heidegger, M. (1943d) µ$OHWKHLD¶, trans. F.A. Capuzzi, in D.F. Krell and F.A. Capuzzi (eds) Early Greek
Thinking, New York: Harper & Row, 1975.(Drawing on +HLGHJJHU¶V 1943 course, µ7KH Beginning of Western
Thinking (Heraclitus)¶, the text, first published in 1954, interprets Heraclitus¶ Fragment 16 in the light of what
Heidegger calls µWKH FOHDULQJ¶/disclosure-as-such.)
Heidegger, M. (1944) µ/RJRV¶, trans. D.F. Krell, in D.F. Krell and F.A. Capuzzi (eds) Early Greek Thinking, New
York: Harper & Row, 1975.(Drawing on +HLGHJJHU¶V 1944 course µ/RJLF (+HUDFOLWXV¶ Doctrine of Logos)¶ the
text interprets Heraclitus¶ Fragment 50 in the light of the relation between disclosure-as-such and 'DVHLQ¶V
correspondence to it.)
Heidegger, M. (1949a) µ7KH 7KLQJ¶, trans. A. Hofstadter, in D.F. Krell (ed.) Poetry, Language, Thought, New
York: Harper & Row, 1971.(Written in 1949, delivered as a lecture in June 1950, and first published in 1951,
the essay offers a phenomenological description of a wine-pitcher as a way of reflecting on the µQHDUQHVV¶ of
things.)
Heidegger, M. (1949b) µ7KH Question Concerning 7HFKQRORJ\¶, in W. Lovitt (trans. and ed.) The Question
Concerning Technology and Other Essays, New York: Harper & Row, 1977.(Written and delivered as a lecture
in 1949 under the title µ'DV *HVWHOO¶, (µ7KH (QIUDPLQJ¶), then delivered under its present title, µ'LH Frage nach
der 7HFKQLN¶, in 1953 and published in the following year, the text argues that technology is not primarily
something instrumental (a means to an end) but a form of disclosure, and that modern technology, as the
demand for complete disclosure, is intrinsically nihilistic.)
Heidegger, M. (1951b) µ%XLOGLQJ Dwelling 7KLQNLQJ¶, trans. A. Hofstadter, in D.F. Krell (ed.) Poetry, Language,
Thought, New York: Harper & Row, 1971.(Delivered as a lecture in 1951 and first published in the following
year, the text meditates on the µQHDUQHVV¶ of things in terms of the µEULQJLQJ-IRUWK¶ (poiesis) of things.)
Heidegger, M. (1951c) µ«3RHWLFDOO\ Man 'ZHOOV«¶, trans. A. Hofstadter, in D.F. Krell (ed.) Poetry, Language,
Thought, New York: Harper & Row, 1971.(Delivered as a lecture in October 1951 and first published in 1954,
the text reflects on +|OGHUOLQ and on poetry as a bringing-forth (poiesis) of things.
Heidegger, M. (1952) µ0RLUD¶, trans. F.A. Capuzzi, in D.F. Krell and F.A. Capuzzi (eds) Early Greek Thinking,
New York: Harper & Row, 1975.(Originally planned as part of +HLGHJJHU¶V 1951-2 lecture course µ:DV KHLW
Denken?¶ the text interprets Parmenides¶ Fragment 8, lines 34-41, and specifically the word µmoira¶, as
referring to the togetherness of Dasein and disclosure-as-such.)
Heidegger, M. (1953b) µ6FLHQFH and 5HIOHFWLRQ¶, in W. Lovitt (trans. and ed.) The Question Concerning
Technology and Other Essays, New York: Harper & Row, 1977. (Delivered as a lecture in 1953, the text
probes the thesis that science is the theory of the real and raises the question of disclosure as the concealed
essence of science.)
Heidegger, M. (1953c) µ:KR is 1LHW]VFKH¶V Zarathustra?¶, trans. D.F. Krell, in Nietzsche, New York: Harper
& Row, 1984, vol. 2.(Delivered as a lecture in May 1953, the essay interprets some major themes in Nietzsche
- time and revenge, nihilism, eternal recurrence, will to power - and suggests that Zarathustra represents the
togetherness of eternal recurrence and superman.)
Heidegger, M. (1956) Was KHLW Denken?, 7ELQJHQ: Max Niemeyer; trans. F. D. Wieck and J.G. Gray, What Is
Called Thinking?, New York: Harper & Row, 1968.(The text of +HLGHJJHU¶V wide-ranging, two-semester
lecture course, 1951-2.)
Heidegger, M. (1957a) Der Satz vom Grund, Pfullingen: *QWKHU Neske; trans. R. Lilly, The Principle of Reason,
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991.(The text of +HLGHJJHU¶V lecture course, 1955-6.)
Heidegger, M. (1957b) ,GHQWLWlW und Differenz, Pfullingen: *QWKHU Neske; trans. J. Stambaugh, Identity and
Difference, New York: Harper & Row, 1969.(Two lectures from 1957, one on the principle of identity, the
other on the ontotheological structure of metaphysics.)
Heidegger, M. (1958) µ9RP Wesen und Begriff der )[uacgr ]VL9. Aristoteles Physik B 1¶, Il Pensiero 3: 131-56;
265-90; trans. T. Sheehan, µ2Q the Being and Conception of PHYSIS in $ULVWRWOH¶V Physics B, 1¶, Man and
World (1976) 9: 221-70; and in Pathmarks, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.(Based on
+HLGHJJHU¶V 1940 seminar, the text examines Aristotle¶V understanding of physis (nature) and argues that physis
originally meant disclosure-as-such.)
Heidegger, M. (1959a) Gelassenheit, Pfullingen: *QWKHU Neske; trans. J.M. Anderson and E.H. Freund,
Discourse on Thinking, New York: Harper & Row, 1966.(Two occasional pieces, one an imaginary dialogue
dating from 1944, the other a speech commemorating the eighteenth-century composer Conradin Kreutzer,
dating from 1955.)
Heidegger, M. (1959b) Unterwegs zur Sprache, Pfullingen: *QWKHU Neske; trans. P.D. Hertz and J. Stambaugh,
On the Way to Language, New York: Harper & Row, 1971.(Four essays and one dialogue, ranging in date from
1950 to 1958, dealing with the question of language.)
Heidegger, M. (1961) Nietzsche, Pfullingen: *QWKHU Neske, 2 vols; trans. D.F. Krell and F. Capuzzi, Nietzsche,
New York: Harper & Row, 1979-87, 4 vols.(Lecture courses and notes on Nietzsche, dating from 1936 to
1946.)
Heidegger, M. (1962) Die Frage nach dem Ding. Zu Kants Lehre von der transzendentalen *UXQGVlW]HQ,
7ELQJHQ: Max Niemeyer; trans. W.B. Barton and V. Deutsch, What Is a Thing?, Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery,
1967.(The text of +HLGHJJHU¶V lecture course of 1935-6, which includes a substantial discussion of the
µ$QDO\WLF of 3ULQFLSOHV¶ in .DQW¶V Critique.)
Heidegger, M. (1967, 1976) Wegmarken, Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann; trans. and ed. D.F. Krell, W. McNeill
and J. Sallis, Pathmarks, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.(A collection of fourteen of
+HLGHJJHU¶V most important essays, ranging in date from 1919 to 1961. The essays include Heidegger 1929a,
1929c, 1942, 1943, 1947 and µ=XU 6HLQVIUDJH¶ (µ7KH Question of %HLQJ¶) 1955.)
Heidegger, M. (1969) Zur Sache des Denkens, 7ELQJHQ: Max Niemeyer; trans. J. Stambaugh, On Time and
Being, New York: Harper & Row, 1972.(Four shorter texts dating from 1961 to 1964, including the 1962
lecture µ=HLW und 6HLQ¶ (µ7LPH and %HLQJ¶).)
Heidegger, M. (1970a) Heraklit. Seminar Wintersemester 1966/1967, Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann; trans. C.H.
Seibert, Heraclitus Seminar 1966/67, Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1979.(The text of the
seminar Heidegger conducted in tandem with Eugen Fink, 1966-7.)
Heidegger, M. (1970b) 3KlQRPHQRORJLH und Theologie, Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann; trans. J.G. Hart and J.C.
Maraldo, The Piety of Thinking, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994.(Two essays, dated 1927 and
1964 respectively, on the possible relation between theology and +HLGHJJHU¶V thinking.)
Heidegger, M. (1971) Schellings Handlung hEHU das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1809), 7ELQJHQ: Max
Niemeyer; trans. J. Stambaugh, 6FKHOOLQJ¶V Treatise On the Essence of Human Freedom, Athens, OH: Ohio
University Press, 1985.(The text of +HLGHJJHU¶V lecture course of 1936.)
Heidegger, M. (1972) )UKH Schriften (Early Writings), Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann.(This volume reprints
most notably +HLGHJJHU¶V Ph.D. dissertation of 1914, and his qualifying dissertation of 1916.)
Heidegger, M. (1976) µ1XU noch ein Gott kann uns UHWWHQ¶, Der Spiegel 23: 193-219; trans. W.J. Richardson,
µ2QO\ a God Can Save Us: The Spiegel ,QWHUYLHZ¶, in T. Sheehan (ed.) Heidegger, the Man and the Thinker,
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University/Transaction Publishers, 1981.(In this posthumously published
interview Heidegger attempts to explain, among other things, his relation to the Nazi regime in 1933-4.)
Heidegger, M. (1977a) Vier Seminare (Four Seminars), Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann; 2nd seminar trans. as µ$
Heidegger Seminar on +HJHO¶V Differenzschrift¶, Southwest Journal of Philosophy (1980) 11.(The records of
four informal seminars that Heidegger conducted with friends and colleagues between 1966 and 1973.)
1 English translations of works in the Collected Edition

Heidegger, M. (1975) Die Grundprobleme der 3KlQRPHQRORJLH, in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 24; trans. A. Hofstadter,
The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1982.(Lecture course,
summer 1927.)
Heidegger, M. (1977b) 3KlQRPHQRORJLVFKH Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in
Gesamtausgabe, vol. 25; trans. P. Emad and K. Maly, Phenomenological Interpretation of .DQW¶V Critique of
Pure Reason, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997.(Lecture course, winter 1927-8.)
Heidegger, M. (1978) Metaphysische $QJDQJVUQGH der Logik, in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 26; trans. M. Heim, The
Metaphysical Foundations of Logik, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984.(Lecture course, summer
1928.)
Heidegger, M. (1979) Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs, in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 20; trans. T. Kisiel,
History of the Concept of Time: Prologomena, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985.(Lecture
course, summer 1925.)
Heidegger, M. (1980) Hegels 3KlQRPHQRORJLH des Geistes, in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 32; trans. P. Emad and K.
Maly, +HJHO¶V Phenomenology of Spirit, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988.(Lecture course,
winter 1930-1.)
Heidegger, M. (1981) Aristoteles, Metaphysik 1-3, in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 33; trans. W. Brogan, Aristotle,
Metaphysics 1-3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.
(Lecture course, summer 1931.)
Heidegger, M. (1982) Parmenides, in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 54; trans. A. Schuwer and R. Rojcewicz, Parmenides,
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992.(Lecture course, winter 1942-3.)
Heidegger, M. (1983) Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt - Endlicheit - Einsamkeit, in Gesamtausgabe, vol.
29/30; trans. W. McNeill and N. Walker, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude,
Solitude, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995.(Lecture course, winter 1929-30.)
Heidegger, M. (1984a) Grundfragen der Philosophie. $XVJHZlKOWH µ3UREOHPH¶ der µ/RJLN¶, in Gesamtausgabe,
vol. 45; trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer, Basic Questions of Philosophy: Selected µ3UREOHPV¶ of µ/RJLF¶,
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994.(Lecture course, winter 1937-8.)
Heidegger, M. (1984b) +|OGHUOLQV Hymne µ'HU ,VWHU¶, in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 53; trans. W. McNeill and J. Davis,
+|OGHUOLQ¶V Hymne µ7KH ,VWHU¶, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.(Lecture course, summer
1942)
Heidegger, M. (1989) %HLWUlJH zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 65; trans. P. Emad and K.
Maly, Contributions to Philosophy: On Ereignis, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1989.(Working
notes, 1936-8.)
Heidegger, M. (1991) Grundbegriffe, in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 51; trans. G.A. Aylesworth, Basic Concepts,
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993.(Lecture course, summer 1941.)
References and further reading

Freeman, K. (ed.) (1971) Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(Heidegger interprets Heraclitus¶ word physis as meaning disclosure-as-such.)
Husserl, E. (1900-1) Logische Untersuchungen, Halle an der Salle: Max Niemeyer, 2 vols; trans. J.N. Findlay,
Logical Investigations, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970, 2 vols.(+XVVHUO¶V foundational work in
phenomenology.)
Husserl, E. (1913) Ideen zu einer reinen 3KlQRPHQRORJLH und SKlQRPHQRORJLVFKHQ Philosophie, vol. 1, Jahrbuch
IU Philosophie und SKlQRPHQRORJLVFKH Forschung 1: 1-323; Halle an der Salle: Max Niemeyer; trans. F.
Kersten, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1982.(Earliest published evidence of +XVVHUO¶V turn to transcendental phenomenology and his use of
the reductions.)
Kisiel, T. (1993) The Genesis of +HLGHJJHU¶V Being and Time, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
(Exhaustive treatment of +HLGHJJHU¶V development, 1915-26.)
3|JJHOHU, O. (1987) Martin +HLGHJJHU¶V Path of Thinking, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.(Lucid
overview by the leading German commentator.)
Richardson, W.J. (1963) Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, The Hague: Nijhoff.(The classical
presentation of the entire oeuvre by the pre-eminent Heidegger scholar.)
Sallis, J. (1986) Delimitations: Phenomenology and the End of Metaphysics, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press; 2nd expanded edn, 1995.(Groundbreaking essays by a major American interpreter.)
Sass, H.-M. (1982) Martin Heidegger: Bibliography and Glossary, Bowling Green, OH: Philosophy
Documentation Center.(The most comprehensive bibliography in English, but needing to be supplemented by
materials found in Sass 1968, 1975.)
Sass, H.-M. (1968) Heidegger-Bibliographie, Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain.(First comprehensive
bibliography of primary and secondary sources up to 1967.)
Sass, H.-M. (1975) Materialien zur Heidegger-Bibliographie 1917-1972, Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain.(This
compliments and revises the information in the previous entry.)
6FKUPDQQ, R. (1987) Heidegger on Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy, Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press.(Comprehensive interpretation and an argument for postmetaphysical an-archy.)
Taminiaux, J. (1991) Heidegger and the Project of Fundamental Ontology, Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press.(Essays on +HLGHJJHU¶V early philosophy.)
Van Buren, J. (1994) The Young Heidegger: Rumor of the Hidden King, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press.(Thorough account of +HLGHJJHU¶V early development.)
Zimmermann, M. (1990) +HLGHJJHU¶V Confrontation with Modernity: Technology, Politics, Art, Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press.(Focuses on the connection between +HLGHJJHU¶V relation to Nazism and his views
on technology.)

Heidegger - REP

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Heidegger - REP

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Heidegger, Martin (1889-1976)

Heidegger, Martin (1889-1976)

1 Life and works

2 Temporality and authenticity

3 Being-in-the-world and hermeneutics

4 Dasein and disclosure

5 Hiddenness, Ereignis and the Turn

so that, in 'DVHLQ¶V being,

6 Forgetfulness, history and metaphysics

7 The work of art

1 English translations of works in the Collected Edition

Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993.(Lecture course, summer 1941.)

References and further reading

You might also like